Jump to content

1/72 - McDD (R)F-4C/D/J/E/EJ Phantom II by Finemolds - (R)F-4C/D/E/EJ & J released - new boxings F4D & E in March 2024


Homebee

Recommended Posts

Got a surprise from DHL today:

 

agPgSiWm.jpg

 

Took only three days from Hobby Search to Florida USA. Hobby Search packing was outstanding -- highly recommended.

 

I spent a couple of hours taping/gluing the kit together, and am uber impressed with the fit!

 

EDIT: The only parts that required any fiddling at all was the Vertical Stabilizer and its insert ... which is too thick to blend in smoothly.

 

 CJYS2Qjm.jpg

 

Gene K

Edited by Gene K
  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Gene K said:

As for the slatted E, what needs to be done to the inner wing besides drilling some holes for the actuators and filling just a few small panel lines  (per Hasegawa)?

I suspect that panel lines and actuators are all that are required in 1:72 scale - I don't know whether the slats changed the aerofoil shape when retracted, but if they did, it wouldn't make much different on a kit.

As you have no doubt seen by now, Fine Molds have made no provision for fitting the actuators to the inboard wing on their kit - unlike Hasegawa with their part thickness location holes. A modeller could fit them, expecially if they had the Paragon deployed slat resin set, but FM have no plan to kit a slatted wing with this wing tooling.

It also doesn't strike me as being their style. But having said that, they have provided for the naval catapult strop attachment hooks in a later edition of the kit.

A new tool for a slatted wing would be a possibility, but we will have to wait to see if FM think there is a market (late F-4E, F-4F, F-4G & F-4S) to justify this. 

 

    Jonathan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Gene K said:

FineMolds F-4C mock up.

 

 

Gene K

 

Whoa, what are you showing us exactly - are they from FineMolds themselves? What about the RF-4 nose in the pic (Revell parts?)? 

 

edit: I didn't notice your earlier post - I get it now 😁.

 

Jay

Edited by Mountain goat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Mountain goat said:

Whoa, what are you showing us exactly - are they from FineMolds themselves? What about the RF-4 nose in the pic (Revell parts?)? 

 

Slightly widened Monogram F-4C nose grafted onto FM F-4EJ. Also, removed stabs slots, cut out speed brakes, and will use Hasegawa fin top, Aires burner cans, and other misc parts like nose gear doors. Not too hard. Would love to see an AM conversion.

 

The RF nose is a Hasegawa modification in progress ... will be a challenge to fit onto FM fuselage because I'd like to keep as much of FM's beautiful detail as possible..

 

I'm making the changes to speed FM's release of these variants. :rolleyes:

 

Gene K

  • Like 3
  • Haha 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Stilwell said:

I suspect that panel lines and actuators are all that are required in 1:72 scale - I don't know whether the slats changed the aerofoil shape when retracted, but if they did, it wouldn't make much different on a kit.

As you have no doubt seen by now, Fine Molds have made no provision for fitting the actuators to the inboard wing on their kit - unlike Hasegawa with their part thickness location holes. A modeller could fit them, expecially if they had the Paragon deployed slat resin set, but FM have no plan to kit a slatted wing with this wing tooling.

It also doesn't strike me as being their style. But having said that, they have provided for the naval catapult strop attachment hooks in a later edition of the kit.

A new tool for a slatted wing would be a possibility, but we will have to wait to see if FM think there is a market (late F-4E, F-4F, F-4G & F-4S) to justify this. 

 

    Jonathan.

 

that's why I didn't order ANY, it they are planning to copy Tamiya with their bait & switch habits, I would rather stick with Hasegawa and Fujimi UK Phantoms and close both eyes for the windshield thingy than buying at least 16 F-4EJ FM kits and unleash the kit-bash chore with Hasegawa parts, no thanks, really no, I committed the error of buying 8 Tamiya F-16s and I still need to go after to at least 5 Revell F-16 and 2 Kinetic kits to steal parts and crap for the intake and polish block 52 antenna parts.

 

Luigi

  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Mountain goat said:

What about the RF-4 nose ... ? 

 

Just a quick follow up (last one): I did a rough first mock up of the RF, and it looks promising:

 

na4H2Nkl.jpg

 

Oan6wIIl.jpg

 

How good is this? :

 

10671321b.jpg

 

Gene K

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

F-4EJkai kit now arrived at Hobby Link Japan.

And actually in stock at the moment, so they received more kits than they had pre-orders.

 

The preferred option to convert the blue RF-4E pictured above, as the late JASDF RF-4Es had most of the lumps and bumps from the kai upgrade.

 

    Jonathan.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is ot~ish due Gene reaction, but since I'm some cryptic dude sometimes I find it hard to explain myself

 

Sorry Gene, as I said many times I'm tired of companies luring and then forgetting.

I know that they do not print money nor are swimming on it, as I know that as a scale model builders WE can somehow fix the gaps by stealing hits & bits from other kits and none other than our own wife ( and I still don't have one) and maybe our wallets will be ever capable to properly judge us for our trickery.

 

I realized that buying 8 Tamiya kits, planning to downgrade them to A was not worth the hassle, still downgrading them to early C or N variants is kinda doable by sacrificing Revell kits and for Revell kits I'm sacrificing a couple of Hasegawa ADF kits because otherwise I will have to use Italeri spare parts but I don't want my shelf to be filled with F-16s

 

But for the F-4 it's a different story, there is the eternal wind-shield problem, the fact that early B had different panel lines on both nose and vertical stab, the phact of door 19, something related to wings and it's differences between naval and land version, there is way too many stuff to be aware off that ticks me off and I don't want it to be another Czech built Mig-21 vs Russian built dilemma especially if none ever dared to approach both E and a Mitsubishi built EJ to check how much stuff was changed

 

Fine Molds will probably release an RF-4E variant as they probably make some B/N or J, otherwise Hasegawa will keep reboxing their F-4 kits with VF-84 decals and goodies, but outside that since there is not so much for them especially in the C/D and G territory I doubt they will ever release said variants. It's the same for the F-14B, they made a D as limited edition kit, then they release two A variants, where in the F is the B when all the parts needed are already there?

 

Luigi

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

See posts 10 and 23 back on page 1. The F-4E has a shorter windscreen than the B/C/D, but Hasegawa took a "one size fits all" approach when they produced their tooling.

As Fine Molds have their windscreen on a separate sprue from the rest of the canopy, they have provisioned to more easily provide a different windscreen if / when they do a short nose variant.

        Jonathan

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I picked up the F-4EJ Kai kit today from the local hobby shop for ¥3140 and the associated weapons set for ¥1400.

 

There is not much that I can add about the Phantom that hasn't already been said, but I took some sprue photos for those that might want to take a look.

 

Link to the album

 

Here are some photos of the weapons in the weapons set. I will admit that I'm pretty underwhelmed by it, it is almost like there was a completely different team when compared to the Phantom kit. I would prefer the Hasegawa offerings in their weapons set over all of the Fine Molds missiles.

 

Link to the weapons album

 

I hope these help inform the discussion.

 

Cheers,

Hoops

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Hoops said:

I picked up the F-4EJ Kai kit today from the local hobby shop for ¥3140 and the associated weapons set for ¥1400.

 

There is not much that I can add about the Phantom that hasn't already been said, but I took some sprue photos for those that might want to take a look.

 

Link to the album

 

Here are some photos of the weapons in the weapons set. I will admit that I'm pretty underwhelmed by it, it is almost like there was a completely different team when compared to the Phantom kit. I would prefer the Hasegawa offerings in their weapons set over all of the Fine Molds missiles.

 

Link to the weapons album

 

I hope these help inform the discussion.

 

Cheers,

Hoops

What did you think was wrong with the FM missiles? The look pretty accurate to me, but maybe a little soft.

 

This is.probably due to the type of plastic used, but not really noticeable in 1/72

 

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/17/2020 at 10:15 AM, Stilwell said:

See posts 10 and 23 back on page 1.

 

Jonathan,

 

On this forum, is there way to identify specific post numbers other than by counting each preceding post?

 

Gene K

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Gene K said:

On this forum, is there way to identify specific post numbers other than by counting each preceding post?

 

If there is, I haven't found it - I counted through the posts for those.

 

       Jonathan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a feature that got lost during the upgrade. The plugin that did that is no longer supported by the author and Mike is looking for a replacement.

---- 

Normal service resumed!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/19/2020 at 12:07 AM, Red Dot said:

What did you think was wrong with the FM missiles? The look pretty accurate to me, but maybe a little soft.

 

This is.probably due to the type of plastic used, but not really noticeable in 1/72

 

Andy

 

I agree that the detail is soft. The recessed panel lines are almost non existent, and will disappear under even the first coat of paint.

 

The AIM-9E looks really wonky to me, the forward fins are too big and set back to far. I think that the chord of the forward AIM-7F fins looks too narrow, but it's not as noticeable. Something about the forward fins of the AIM-9M is not right, but I'm not sure. I think that is because the front of the forward fins has a blunt end rather than a continuous slope into the missile frame.

 

Small details on the Fine Molds ASM-1 and ASM-2 are better, but they suffer from the same panel line issue.

 

The Hasegawa set retails for about ¥600-700, but the Fine Molds set for ¥1400, I don't think it's anywhere near as a good of a value, and I will not be purchasing it again.

 

On 10/18/2020 at 11:17 PM, Gene K said:

 

Thanks, Hoops. Really nice detail shots.

 

Is the dark gray missile the Hasegawa version for comparison?

 

Gene K

Affirmative.

Edited by Hoops
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...